Life of Luther. Julius Köstlin
advanced with impunity by writers of the fifteenth century. The only point as to which no doubt was expressed, was that the decisions of previous General Councils, acknowledged also by the Pope, contained absolutely pure Divine truth, and that the Christian Universal Church could never fall into error; but even then, with reference to this Church, the question still remained as to who or what was her true and final representative.
Luther now followed what he found to be the teaching of the Bible, so far as that teaching presented itself to his own independent and conscientious research, and as, traced home in the New Testament and especially in the Epistles of St. Paul, it shaped itself to his perception. But for all this, he would not yet abandon his agreement with the Church of which he was a member. The very man whom Eck had branded as full of 'Bohemian poison,' complained of the Bohemian Brethren or Moravians for exalting themselves in their ignorance above the rest of Christendom. A Thomist indeed, who to him was only a Scholastic among others, he fearlessly opposed; but still we find no expression of a thought that the Church, assembled at a General Council, had ever erred, nor even that any future Council could pronounce an erroneous decision upon the present points in dispute. Nay, he awaits the decision of such a Council against the charges of heresy already brought against him, though without ever admitting his readiness, if such a Council should assemble, to submit beforehand and unconditionally to its decision, whatever it might be. Above and before any such decision he held firm to the authority of his own conviction: his conscience, he said, would not allow him to yield from that resolve; he was not standing alone in this contest, but with him stood the truth, together with all those who shared his doubts as to the virtue of indulgences.
Still, while rejecting the doctrine of the infallibility of the Popes, it was a hard matter for Luther to reproach them also with actual error in their decisions. We have seen how necessity forced him to do so in the case of Clement VI. Towards the existing Head of the Church he desired to remain, as far as possible, in concord and subjection. It was not for mere appearance' sake, that in his ninety-five theses he represented his own view of indulgences as being also that of the Pope. He hoped, at all events, and wished with all his heart that it was so; and later on, towards the close of his life, he tells us how confidently he had cherished the expectation that the Pope would be his patron in the war against the shameless vendors of indulgences. Even after those hopes had failed, he spoke of Leo X. with respect as a man of good disposition and an educated theologian, whose only misfortune was that he lived in an atmosphere of corruption and in a vicious age. He was none the less assured of his Divine credentials as the supreme earthly Shepherd of Christendom, and the depositary of all canonical power. The duty of humility and obedience, impressed on him to excess as a monk, must, no less than the fear of the possible dangers and troubles in store for himself and his Christian brethren, have made Luther shrink from the thought of having actually to testify and fight against him. He ventured to dedicate his 'Solutions' to the Pope himself. The letter of May 30, 1518, in which he did this, shows the peculiar, anomalous, and untenable position in which he now found himself placed. He is horrified, he says, at the charges of heresy and schism brought against himself. He who would much prefer to live in peace, had no wish to set up any dogmas in his theses, provoked as they were by a public scandal, but simply in Christian zeal, or, as others might have it, in youthful ardour, to invite men to a disputation, and his present desire was to publish his explanation of them under the patronage and protection of the Pope himself. But at the same time he declares that his conscience was innocent and untroubled, and he adds with emphatic brevity, 'Retract I cannot.' He concludes by humbly casting himself at the Pope's feet with the words, 'Give me life or death, accept or reject me as you please.' He will recognise the Papal voice as that of the Lord Jesus Himself. He will, if worthy of death, not flinch from it. But that declaration of his, which he could not retract, must stand.
CHAPTER III.
LUTHER AT AUGSBURG BEFORE CAIETAN. APPEAL TO A COUNCIL.
The task that Luther had now undertaken lay heavy upon his soul. He was sincerely anxious, whilst fighting for the truth, to remain at peace with his Church, and to serve her by the struggle. Pope Leo, on the contrary, as was consistent with his whole character, treated the matter at first very lightly, and when it threatened to become dangerous, thought only how, by means of his Papal power, to make the restless German monk harmless.
Two expressions of his in these early days of the contest are recorded. 'Brother Martin,' he said, 'is a man of a very fine genius, and this outbreak the mere squabble of envious monks;' and again, 'It is a drunken German who has written the theses; he will think differently about them when sober.' Three months after the theses had appeared, he ordered the Vicar-General of the Augustinians to 'quiet down the man,' hoping still to extinguish easily the flame. The next step was to institute a tribunal for heretics at Rome, for Luther's trial: what its judgment would be was patent from the fact that the single theologian of learning among the judges was Sylvester Prierias. Before this tribunal Luther was cited on August 7; within sixty days he was to appear there at Rome. Friend and foe could well feel certain that they would look in vain for his return.
Papal influence, meanwhile, had been brought to bear on the Elector Frederick, to induce him not to take the part of Luther, and the chief agent chosen for working on the Elector and the Emperor Maximilian was the Papal legate, Cardinal Thomas Vio of Gäeta, called Caietan, who had made his appearance in Germany. The University of Wittenberg, on the other hand, interposed on behalf of their member, whose theology was popular there, and whose biblical lectures attracted crowds of enthusiastic hearers. He had just been joined at Wittenberg by his fellow-professor Philip Melancthon, then only twenty-one years old, but already in the first rank of Greek scholars, and the bond of friendship was now formed which lasted through their lives. The university claimed that Luther should at least be tried in Germany.
Luther expressed the same wish through Spalatin to his sovereign. He now also answered publicly the attack of Prierias upon his theses, and declared not only that a Council alone could represent the Church, but that even a decree of Council might err, and that an Act of the Church was no final evidence of the truth of a doctrine. Being threatened with excommunication, he preached a sermon on the subject, and showed how a Christian, even if under the ban of the Church, or excluded from outward communion with her, could still remain in true inward communion with Christ and His believers, and might then see in his excommunication the noblest merit of his own.
The Pope, meanwhile, had passed from his previous state of haughty complacency to one of violent haste. Already, on August 23, thus long before the sixty days had expired, he demanded the Elector to deliver up this 'child of the devil,' who boasted of his protection, to the legate, to bring away with him. This is clearly shown by two private briefs from the Pope, of August 23 and 25, the one addressed to the legate, the other to the head of all the Augustinian convents in Saxony, as distinguished from the Vicar of those congregations, Staupitz, who already was looked on with suspicion at Borne. These briefs instructed both men to hasten the arrest of the heretic; his adherents were to be secured with him, and every place where he was tolerated laid under the interdict. So unheard of seemed this conduct of the Pope, that Protestant historians would not believe in the genuineness of the briefs; but we shall soon see how Caietan himself refers to the one in his possession.
Other and general relations, interests, and movements of the ecclesiastical and political life of the German nation now began to exercise an influence, direct or indirect, upon the history of Luther and the development of the struggles of the Reformation, and even caused the Pope himself to moderate his conduct.
Whilst questions of the deepest kind about the means of salvation, and the grounds and rules of Christian truth, had been opened up for the first time by Luther during the contest about indulgences, the abuses, encroachments, and acts of tyranny committed by the Pope on the temporal domain of the Church, and closely affecting the political and social life of the people, had long been the subject of bitter complaints and vigorous remonstrances throughout Germany. These complaints and remonstrances had been raised by princes and states of the Empire, who would not be silenced by any theories